


Cheap Motels in the Alabama Summer

by Ghostbunne



Series: Marble Hornets One Shots [4]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Comfort, Confessions, Fluff, Jay Rambles, Jay is awkward, Literal Sleeping Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Medium Length, Nothing Hurts, One Shot, Oneshot, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Sleeping Together, Sleeptalking, There Is Only One Bed, Tim and Jay Share a Bed, nothing bad happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24905035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostbunne/pseuds/Ghostbunne
Summary: Tim and Jay run out of Motel's, settling for the first one with a vacancy they can find. The only problem? There's only one bed, and whilst Jay would like that a little due to his big crush on Tim, he doubts the other man would like it in any capacity.
Relationships: Jay Merrick/Timothy "Tim" Wright
Series: Marble Hornets One Shots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761373
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	Cheap Motels in the Alabama Summer

They had struggled to even find a motel with a room available. Most of the others in the area were either out of their collective budget, had already been used by the pair far too recently for comfort, or were full by the time they reached them. As soon as they found one with a vacancy they just booked it without asking any questions. They were tired, and it was hot out, and both of them just wanted to shower and sleep. Jay had been a little bit skeptical of the price, it was a lot cheaper than other places they had stayed at but after a moment of fumbling around with their bags to get them out of the car whilst Tim secured the room he had managed to convince himself it was likely only a sign of the lack of quality. He had been sorely mistaken.

When they entered the room neither of them noticed, with Tim making a beeline for the shower and Jay quickly setting up his laptop and camera on the nearby desk to send out a few tweets and review what little footage he had found interesting. It was during a rare five-minute break he had allowed himself that knowledge of the problem arose. When Jay looked at the room he quickly realized why it was so cheap. The room had only one bed. Jay grew nervous, immediately jumping to ideas to avoid making Tim uncomfortable. Whilst Jay wouldn’t mind sharing a bed, especially with Tim, the other man seemed averse to touch from even those close to him, and Jay doubted he would want to be in a bed with the guy who had pulled him into a mess he thought he no longer had a role in. He could offer to sleep on the floor despite the likelihood that the building had an infestation of cockroaches, or worse, rats. He could sleep in the small armchair in the corner, or even never go to sleep at all. Sure, he had already pulled an all-nighter the previous night but what was 48 hours or more without sleep going to do? Jay nervously wrung his hands as he thought of solutions to avoid the awkward situation of forcing the guy he had a crush on, scratch that, the guy who probably still hated his guts a little bit, to share a bed with him. Of course in Jay’s mind, the situation had somehow devolved into it being his fault despite the fact he didn’t have any control over which rooms were vacant and which questions got asked during booking, and so he was slowly working himself up more and more, assuming there was going to be some sort of fight between the two of them over the bed situation. After all, there had been a fight in a parking lot over Jay being dishonest or a spat in another parking lot about Jay leaking Tim’s medical records on youtube, and those had definitely been Jay’s fault at least a little bit and thus were prime examples to him of what happened every time he fucked up.

Jay jumped when he heard the bathroom door creak open, quickly realizing that his quick break had turned into a long one with his worrying.

“Oh,” Tim said, and Jay quickly turned to see he was staring directly at the elephant in the room, or more accurately, the bed. He turned to Jay, who braced for anger and was confused when none came. “Huh. Guess they only had single rooms left. Well, if you want to use the shower it’s open now unless you want to keep editing or whatever.”

“I’ll go use the shower,” Jay said quickie, grabbing his duffle bag and slamming the door to the bathroom behind him. He could hear Tim saying something to himself but couldn’t make out what as he turned on the flow of water. Once it was hot enough he got in, using what little soap he had with him to scrub his skin until it felt clean. For a while he just stood under the water in a bit of a trance, letting it flow down his back until the water turning a sudden icy cold from the nearly scalding temperature it had been prior startled him back to reality. He turned it off, taking note of his pruney fingers. He had been zoned out for quite a while. Despite the shower, he still felt as though there was grime stuck to him, grime that likely wouldn’t feel like it was gone until they found a nicer motel or hotel, or until they went to somebody’s house and used theirs. Likely Tim’s, seeing as Jay’s apartment had burned down long ago, but Jay doubted he would be getting an invitation to Tim’s house at any point. When Jay had brushed his teeth and finished making himself feel as clean as he could with the tools given to him he stepped out of the bathroom, ready to address the situation.

“If you’re not comfortable sharing a bed that’s fine, but I don’t really care,” Tim said before Jay could say anything. “I mean, it would probably be better if you used the bed considering you didn’t sleep at all last night and I could sleep in a chair or something, but either way you use the bed.”

“Tim, I, that’s not fair. You use the bed and I’ll uh. I can sleep on the floor.” Jay responded quickly, stumbling over his words. “Not that I’d be uncomfortable just, uh, don’t want to intrude on you. Which isn’t to say I’d be comfortable either I mean it would just be normal two guys sharing a bed.”

Jay considered his foot successfully stuck in his mouth as he continued to ramble on about nonsense that slowly became less and less to do with sleeping arrangements. Tim frowned at him.

“You’re not sleeping on the floor. If it doesn’t make you uncomfortable than we can share but the last thing I want to happen is both of us waking up at three in the morning because a rat decided to crawl up your pant leg.” Tim said with a sigh before returning to reading the beat-up paperback he had brought with him. He was already off to one side of the bed and so once Jay had finished closing up his laptop he awkwardly got into bed on the other side, his body tense as he did his best to avoid touching Tim with any of his gangly limbs. After what felt like an eternity Tim turned off the lamp, sending the room into darkness. “Good night, Jay.”

“Good night,” Jay responded quietly as he stared into the darkness of the room, unable to sleep from how tense he was. It felt like another eternity had passed before it happened. It was quick and Jay wasn’t able to get out of the way before Tim rolled over in his sleep, wrapping his arm around Jay, who squeaked slightly from being startled. He pulled Jay closer, mumbling something in his sleep, whilst Jay laid there as stiff as a board, his eyes wide as he tried to figure out what to do. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable, quite the opposite actually. Tim holding him was nice, and he liked the feeling, but it was a feeling he shouldn’t be having. Tim wouldn’t be doing this had he been awake. Tim did not like him, and never would. As Jay continued to lay there silently he relaxed his body, realizing at the very least he could try to sleep and just pretend it didn’t happen in the morning, but as Jay closed his eyes and tried to drift off something shocked him awake.

“Jay, I like you. You know that right?” Tim mumbled in his sleep, likely in some sort of dream, but just in case it wasn’t a dream Jay took his chance.

“As- as a friend?” he responded quietly, barely above a whisper, but in the silence of the room, it sounded like a foghorn.

“Mmm. You’re my friend but. I like you more than that too.” Jay’s heart skipped a beat when he had said that. Instantly he was entirely awake once more. “I like you… a lot… and I want to tell you, but I can’t… Mmm. Not really anyway.”

Jay quickly realized Tim was talking in his sleep, likely to some dream version of him. He had mentioned a few times that he would often have lucid dreams, and Jay assumed that must have been what was going on. 

“You could tell me. You know, I like you too.”

“As a friend?” Tim responded after a moment, but not really.

“More than a friend.”

“Mmm. You shouldn’t. You could do better.”

“I don’t think I could.” After that Tim fell silent, or at least he assumed he did considering he was asleep before Tim started sleeptalking again.

They both woke up at the same time that morning, Tim shooting off of his side of his bed, his arm pulling away causing Jay to fall off of his side with a yelp.

“Oh my god, Jay I’m sorry,” Tim said, his hands over his face as Jay scrambled up from the floor.

“It’s fine! It’s fine. I’m alright.” He laughed, assuming Tim was apologizing for knocking him out of the bed. “The floor is, uh, carpeted. Softened the fall. The worst thing I’ll get is a bit of carpet burn.”

“No, I meant, I was- You know what? Nevermind.” Tim said, turning towards the window and flinging it open as he lit a cigarette despite the no-smoking policy, clearly stressed. “It doesn’t matter.”

Jay quickly realized what Tim was actually apologizing for.

“Hey, Tim, remember how you told me you lucid dream sometimes and you talk when it’s happening? Uh, you must have been dreaming last night because-”

“What did- What did I say?” Tim asked, putting out the cigarette before turning to face Jay.

“Well, uh, you said I was your friend which was nice considering I thought you tolerated me at best.” Tim gave him a look that Jay interpreted as ‘How clueless are you?’ to which he laughed slightly. “Then, uh, you said you liked me more than as a friend-”

“I’ll make sure the next motel room has two beds next time. I’m- I’m sorry about that. You can just ignore it. Pretend it didn’t happen.” Tim interrupted.

“Tim, I like you too. I uh, told you that while you were dreaming.” Jay said as Tim’s mouth silently formed an O shape. “I just- didn’t think to mention it sooner because once again, I thought you didn’t like me. At all.”

“Why- How could you think I didn’t at least consider you a friend?” Tim asked.

“Well, we never really talked about it! I thought we were just sticking together for safety reasons, I mean it would be harder for Alex to take us out if were together. I assumed it was a symbiotic sort of thing that would just end when this was all over.” Jay responded with a huff, as if it were the most obvious reason in the world, because to him it was more than obvious. “I uh. I guess that isn’t the case though.”

Before Jay knew what was happening Tim had him in a hug.

“I uh, I guess we don’t need to worry about getting separate beds now?” Jay asked and Tim laughed. Jay liked his laugh a lot. He didn’t get to hear it often.

“I mean if you want that. If you want to get together.” Tim responded, the empty void after his word filled with the facts of the situation they were in. Jay mentally blocked those out and looked at Tim as he stepped back slightly.

“I think- No, I know I want that.”


End file.
